Back to Basics
by Madisonne
Summary: After the wars, a Preventer gets sent back to school to find an enemy. Little did he suspect, however, that things would turn out THIS way...
1. Back to Basics

Title: Untitled

Author: Madisonne

Part: 1/?

Warnings: None

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does NOT belong to me... (Damn, damn, damn...) No infringement on the rights of the owners of said anime intended. Don't sue me, suing isn't nice. As for the fic, don't steal it! Criticism accepted (feed me feed-back at Fire_Elf_Rei@hotmail.com!!!), flames laughed at.

Notes: [None].

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"Azriel! Are you even paying attention?!!"

"Hmm?" He snapped to attention. "Oh... I'm sorry, my mind wandered, it won't happen again." He snuck the ear-piece back into his pocket.

She pursed her lips, glaring down at him. "Well, I should hope not!" She mentally remarked on his response. 'Very mature for his age...' "As I was saying, we will be studying chaos theory. Anyone know what the theory is? Yes, Azriel?"

He lowered his hand. "It has to do with the outcome of situations and their vast millions of variations..."

* * * * * 

He plopped down on his bed, flipping open his Spanish workbook. He found the assignment page and began working. 'La doctora pague el di...' His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his cell-phone. 'But, only two people know this number for emerg...' "Shit!" He fumbled for his phone. Snapping it open, he put it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, just wanted to see how you were doing."

He sighed in exasperation.

"What, is this a bad time?" The voice jibbed sarcastically.

"I told you this number was only for emergencies!"

"You weren't answering the com-unit."

He pulled out the equipment. "It was off. I'm sorry." He didn't sound repentant at all. "Look, can I just call you all tonight? I need to study."

"Why do you even bother? You know this stuff already! And if you fail because you didn't do your homework, we can just change your grade in the computer if it bothers you _that_ much!"

"Well, if you hadn't put me in so many classes..."

"It was necessary to cover as many disciplines as possible to catch... Them."

"Then don't complain when I need time to work!" He protested, clicking off the phone and continuing his work. 'Present subjunctive, feminine...'

The phone rang. 

He glared at it, then stuffed it under his pillow. 

Thirty minutes later saw him on the floor practicing for his sign language test. "I am going to the library." He spoke as he signed. "No, wait... It's on the left..."

Five hours later saw him lying on his bed, pouring over his AP psychology book. "Tonic innervation of the striatum..." He yawned. "Affects the action... Of the motor cortex." Slowly he fell asleep. While in a half-waking, half-sleeping daze, he pulled a blanket over himself, sighing heavily.

* * * * * 

The spunky girl bounced along beside the equally hyper guy. "You'll like your room-mate! He's kinda quiet, but he's really nice."

He snorted. "Hell, I'm used to quiet."

"He's a newbie too, he has been here for about a week. Ah, here we are!" She stopped at a non-descript door. "Just don't wake him up suddenly, he's very strong and pretty wired. He's an odd one," She gave him a side-ways glance, "But cool!"

The girl left, and he was there, alone, his hand on the door-knob. 'Okay...' He breathed to himself and opened the door. He sighed in relief as he saw that his room-mate was apparently fast asleep under the covers of one of the twin-sized beds, he really wasn't up to talking a bunch right now. 'Hn, another difference from the war... Guess not blowing shit up has fucked with my brain...' 

Right away he could tell that the two of them were not going to get along well. 'What the hell's wrong with him?!! This place... It's so... So... Neat...' He looked around him in wonder as he saw that everything, indeed, had a place and it was also all in that particular place.

He went over to the desk beside the window and swiped a finger over the cherry wood. 'Just as I suspected, not a shred of dust or grime on anything...' He sighed and threw his suitcase down beside his bed. 'Well, might do me good to get a bit of rest...' Those were his last semi-coherent thoughts before slumber grabbed him by both arms and slammed him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * * * * 

He sat straight up in bed, panting and shivering, recovering from a night-mare. A firm shake of his head got most of his senses back under his control. Even in his slightly panicked state he could tell that something wasn't right. Looking over the room, he saw that an unmoving form occupied the twin bed across from his.

'Damn, they had to bunk someone with me...' He grumbled inwardly. Hearing a soft ringing sound, he tilted his head to the side, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. Further thought reminded him that he'd left his cell-phone under his pillow the night before.

Grumbling slightly about the unfairness of it all, he answered the phone while heading into the bathroom so he wouldn't disturb his new room-mate. "Hello?"

"Hey Zechs, er... Azriel!"

"Noin, do you realize how fucking _early_ it is?!!" He growled.

A pause. "Nope!"

"What do you want?!!" He hissed.

"We got some information that I thought you might like..."

Zechs snapped to immediate attention. "Yes?"

"You aren't going to like it... Well, you know when we thought Treize was dead? Well... He's not."

Zechs nearly dropped the phone in shock. "Say _what_?!!"

"Apparently some obscure hospital took him in under Une's direction and he's going to come work for the Preventers."

Something about that statement struck Zechs as being scarily ironic. "Shit..."

She snorted. "Yeah, my thoughts exactly... Well, if he tries anything can I beat the shit out of him?"

Zechs scowled. "You mean, after I'm through with him? I doubt, Noin dear, that there will be much left of him to beat the shit out of..."

Noin sighed. "Gods Zechs, this has got to be _so_ hard for you..."

"Yeah, you're telling _me_... Where is he now?"

"Apparently Une sent him some place... I'm not really sure..."

"Jesus..." Zechs rubbed his temples in aggravation. "Just when I thought..."

A pause. "Thought what?"

Zechs continued, his voice thick with barely concealed emotion. "That it was... Going to be okay..."

"Gods, I'm _so_ sorry..."

"That's alright... I'll be okay... Well, listen, I've got to go and get some sleep. And it's not like he's liable to show up here any time soon..."

"Alright, good night, dear."

"You too." He hung up the phone and walked back into the bedroom, only to find his room-mate awake and sitting on the edge of his bed, a few lamps turned on around the room. "Oh, hello..."

The boy looked up. 

Zechs nearly fell over. It was that Maxwell kid, well, guaranteed looking a little older, but... "Uhm, Maxwell, isn't it?"

He frowned. "How did you know my name? And who are you?"

Zechs was relieved that the boy didn't seem to know who he was. "Uh, in the newspapers... I'm Azriel." He smiled and sat down on his own bed. "Sorry to wake you up..."

He shook his head. "It's not a problem. Who were ya talking to? Girl-friend?"

Zechs snorted. "Not hardly... I guess you could call her a confidant." 

He nodded. "Understood. Listen, we've only gotta little bit before classes start, so we'd better get ready."

Zechs raised one eye-brow. "Is it really that late already?" He sighed but crossed to select an out-fit from the obsessively-arranged closet. 

"Are you always like that?" The boy asked.

Zechs frowned. "Like what?"

"So... Neat?"

He was slightly shocked at that question, he'd never thought about himself being _that_ neat. "Uh, yeah?"

"Man, that's gonna be a problem. Ya see, I'm not exactly the neatest person in the planet..."

"Is that why you cut your hair?" Zechs asked, noting the shorter, bobbed cut the boy sported.

His focus suddenly changed to the floor. "No..." He barely whispered.

"Oh, uhm... I'm sorry..." Zechs apologized clumsily. 

"Don't worry about it, it's sort of a long story..."

"Isn't it all?" Zechs half-muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"Uh, nothing. Sorry."

* * * * * 

It was made painfully obvious to Duo that Azriel was the epitome of the incredible student. He was awed by the sheer brain-power the man commanded. But, for some reason or another, he couldn't trust the man, there was just something about him...

As for Zechs, he feared what might happen if Duo figured out who he was and why he was posing as a student. This made for his distancing himself as much as possible from the usually sociable and friendly ex-pilot.

Both of their distrusts of the other proved to be fatalistic to their attempt at friendship, which made them more and more uncomfortable, until one day...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 


	2. Back to Basics

Title: For the Love of Monkey [Untitled]

Author: Madisonne

Part: 2/?

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does NOT belong to me... (Damn, damn, damn...) No infringement on the rights of the owners of said anime intended. Don't sue me, suing isn't nice. As for the fic, don't steal it! Criticism accepted (feed me feed-back at Fire_Elf_Rei@hotmail.com!!!), flames laughed at.

Notes: This is a very silly little addition to the story... The next installment won't be so... Weird? :-(...

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Zechs was jogging around the campus one morning to burn off stress and extra energy when he heard a heart-rending mewl. Stopping in the middle of the trail, much to the dismay of other runners on the trail, he sought out the soft cry. Kneeling in the middle of a bunch of briars, he saw the source of the whimper, a small dog, a Lakeland terrier by the looks of it. 

The scrawny creature had obviously been abandoned by its previous owner, but, other than a few scratches, seemed unharmed. Sighing in relief, he lifted the dog out from the patch of prickles and wrapped the animal in his sweat-shirt tenderly. The only response the animal made was to squirm into a comfortable lump in the material and fall quickly asleep. 

Careful not to jog the little bundle, he carried the dog back to his dorm room, which was deserted, a trail of books and papers belying his room-mate's hasty exit earlier that day. He left the animal on his bed with a half-hearted stern instruction not to get into any trouble and headed for the pet store in the city to buy a couple of staples for his new pet.

Upon his return an hour later, he saw that his room-mate had come home and was none too happy with his new acquisition. 

"Get away!" The boy shrieked from his perch on the desk at the curious dog on the floor. 

"Uhm, is there a problem?" Zechs asked as he deposited the bag and his car keys on the dresser. He went over to the dog and picked it up, cuddling it in his arms. "Did Monk-monk here startle you?"

"Monk-monk?"

"Well, his name is really Monkey. Because he's such a little imp." He smiled at the wriggling dog. "Aren't you?"

"Is he... Uhm... _Staying_?"

"Of course. His owners left him out in the cold." He put the dog back down and began to unpack the food he'd bought for the animal.

"I'm sorry, man, but I just can't _deal_ with this..." He started backing out of the room. "You're gonna have to find a new room-mate. This is just... Too much."

Zechs frowned. "You don't have to leave. It's just a dog."

"That's _exactly_ my point! I really, really don't like dogs..." He opened the door. "I'll go get my room changed." He slammed the door shut behind himself.

"What a weird little boy." He shrugged. "Well, Monk-Monk, let's get you fed, huh?"

The dog's ears perked up as he heard the word 'food'.

Zechs laughed and poured out some dry food for the animal and watched as Monkey ate it eagerly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 


End file.
